This invention relates to information systems for retail stores.
Shopping can be a tedious chore, particularly when one is purchasing routine products such as groceries. Among the most tedious aspects of shopping are waiting in line at the checkout counter, and standing at the counter while one""s purchases are rung up.
Delays in checkout may become so frustrating to shoppers in some cases that they abandon their purchases and walk out of the store without buying. This causes loss of revenue to the store.
Certain in-store promotional and advertising systems have been proposed to provide content or information to customers at the point of sale, as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,175 (System and Method for Offering Targeted Discounts to Customers), U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,211 (Method and Apparatus for Promoting Products and Influencing Consumer Purchasing Decisions at the Point-of-Purchase) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,066 (In-Store Advertising System). However, such systems generally do little to relieve boredom associated with delays in checkout and have not been widely adopted.
More widespread programs known as xe2x80x9cCheckout Couponxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cCheckout Directxe2x80x9d are sponsored by Catalina Marketing, Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla. These systems deliver coupons or other incentives to the point of sale and may be targeted to the individual customer. The same company also sponsors an in-store instant-win game to give customers incentives to shop at stores for which the game is made available. Again, these programs provide little to relieve boredom.
It would be beneficial both to customers and to retail establishments if the shopping experience, and particularly the process of checking out purchases, could be made more entertaining for the customer. A store that is able to make the shopping experience more entertaining may gain a competitive advantage and draw customers away from other stores.
According to an aspect of the invention, a method of handling a transaction at a point of sale (POS) terminal includes entering a plurality of product identifiers, each corresponding to a respective product selected for purchase by a customer, and generating a random outcome to determine if the customer wins one of the selected products, the random outcome also determining which one of the plurality of the selected products is won. A result of the generating step may be presented to the customer via an entertainment interface, such as a display screen depicting a slot machine.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method of handling a transaction at a POS terminal includes entering a product identifier that corresponds to a product selected for purchase, and, responsive to entry of the product identifier, displaying an image that represents the corresponding product.
According to still another aspect of the invention, a method of handling a transaction at a POS terminal includes entering into the POS terminal data for identifying a customer, and generating a random outcome to determine whether a benefit is provided to the customer, wherein the random outcome depends in part on a purchasing history of the customer. The benefit to be provided to the customer may be a coupon, an upsell offer, a free product or a discount offer.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, a method of handling a transaction at a POS terminal includes entering into the POS terminal data for identifying a customer, and generating a random outcome to determine whether a benefit is provided to the customer, where the random outcome depends in part on an outcome that was previously provided to the customer.
According to still a further aspect of the invention, a method of entertaining a customer at a shelf in a retail store includes entering into a terminal at the shelf a product identifier that corresponds to a product selected for purchase by the customer, and, responsive to entry of the product identifier, displaying to the customer an image that represents the corresponding product.
According to still another aspect of the invention, a method of entertaining a customer at a shelf in a retail store includes entering into a terminal at the shelf at least one product identifier that corresponds to a respective product selected for purchase, and generating a random outcome to determine whether the customer wins a product that corresponds to the at least one product identifier.
By practicing the present invention, retailers are able to make the shopping experience more entertaining and interesting to customers, thereby attracting customers to their stores.